Transitional justice in Tunisia

As Tunisia deals with the legacy of the Ben Ali regime, the framework of transitional justice is being used by many within the government and in civil society to guide the transformation. This includes the creation of a Tunisian Ministry of Human Rights and Transitional Justice, the involvement of international groups such as the ICTJ, and a plethora of local groups which have begun to work under the umbrella of transitional justice. There is considerable debate surrounding the transitional justice process in Tunisia, especially around the specific form the process should take.

One of my friends, Dr. Christalla Yakinthou, has considerable experience working in the practice and theory of transitional justice, and while we were in Tunisia we were interested in looking more closely at the process. In order to connect our interests, we focused specifically on the shifts in Internet governance which have happened since the fall of the Ben Ali regime. Internet governance is not traditionally seen as being a part of transitional justice, but it’s a vital part of the process of rebuilding and dealing with past human rights abuses.

As Tunisians struggle to deal with the ongoing challenges of reconfiguring the state, including dealing with ongoing police violence and IMF ‘reforms‘ that are unlikely to help the Tunisian people, Internet governance seems to be one area in which definite progress has been made. We talked to a range of people, including activists, bureaucrats, and those working within the Tunisian Internet Agency: most were very pleased with the changes made so far, and the way in which the legacy of online surveillance and censorship had been dealt with.

This doesn’t mean that the Internet freedom is secure, of course, just as it isn’t secure in Australia or other nominal democracies.. While the previous mechanisms of censorship and surveillance have been largely dismantled, Tunisian courts continue to attempt censorship or other coercive measures to silence dissent, as well as ‘objectionable content’ such as pornography. Concerns also exist about the potential affects of the intellectual property provisions slated for the new Tunisian constitution, and the creation of a new ‘cybercrime‘ unit.

As we wind up the final interviews in the first phase of the research, I’ll be hoping for the best for those in Tunisia working on these issues. Everyone we spoke to was very generous with their time, especially given what a busy period it is there. We have some great material, and I’m looking forward to putting it together for publication. It’ll be interesting: it’s the first time I’ve focused on such a state-centric process. I think that there are important critiques to be made of the transitional justice process, and particularly of the top-down nature of much of the work in the area. While there are great hopes for the transitional justice framework, it’s important to understand it as part of broader structures, including the coercive mechanisms of the state and the international system. At the same time, many Tunisians are attempting to mould existing frameworks to meet their own needs, including by questioning existing models for transitional justice.